How hard can this be?

I found this lovely item for sale in the on-line store of a very hip little shop. http://domy.myshopify.com/products/shikito-brown

Really? Seriously?
This item (ahem. "Vinyl Toy") retails for $25. It is the icon for the B*Shit line of streetware. And for those of you who don't use "streetware" in your daily vocabulary, I suppose it means T-shirts you use to make a statement, instead of those that emerged from near the top of the laundry hamper. But, back to the vinyl toy. It struck me: someone manufactured, packaged and marketed it.

I'm thinking that the rest of us who are not in this line of work, well, we are just a bunch of uptight overachievers.

Me at five

The person I am was born five years ago, on January 20, 2003.

At the time, it seemed accidental.

That other me was miserable, lonely, depressed, worried, muddled, anxious, flabby, fearful, morbid. My life was passing me by in excruciating slow motion. And I was like a spectator at a Kabuki theater show, uncomprehending and confused about the plot, the characters and the point of it all.

I drove the streets of Houston, dreading to go home.

If I swerved my car into that telephone pole, or this concrete embankment, would it look like an accident? I couldn't stand my children suffering the abandonment caused by a mother who committed suicide. Plus, they could collect my life insurance.

But I'd screwed up so many other things in life, I'd probably screw up my death, too. I was chicken--thank goodness.

Despite (because of?) being so crazy myself, I was on a mission to fix the crazy people in my life. If I could just come to grips with my screwed up family members-- as my addled reasoning went-- then, THEN, I'd be happy.

So, I headed into Al-Anon, looking for serenity, trying to find the secret to fixing them, searching for the magic mantra or fail-safe strategy to straighten all of them out.

I even screwed that up.

I walked in the wrong door, into the wrong room.

Sitting on that folding chair in the back of the room, the fog in my head and darkness in my heart was heavy as I'd ever known. The God of my childhood was pissed off and vengeful, and I was sure He was deeply disgruntled with me. My family was estranged. I felt awkward socializing and retreated from the few friends I hadn't pushed away. My business was stumbling. My third marriage was spiteful and loveless. I was afraid my son would die and my daughter had left to go live with her dad.

But that night, a white-haired man with twinkling blue eyes and kindness like drops of warm rain on parched earth smiled at me and said, "There's only one person in this world you can change, and that's you."

"Just because you get sober, that doesn't mean your life will suddenly be wonderful," he said. "It may not get any better. Life will still be life. But YOU will get better, and that will make it so much easier to deal with life."

He was right.

My life didn't get better. In fact, it got worse immediately. Then a lot worse.

Then it got different.

Then it got better.

Then it became miraculous.

In five years, I have:

Gotten divorced.

Taken a year's sabbatical from romantic involvement.

Sold a house and a business, bought a house, sold it, and changed jobs twice.

Confessed my most shameful, guilt-inducing secrets to a priest, then to my dearest friend and gradually made peace with my past.

Reconciled with my daughter and rebuilt our relationship better than we'd ever dreamed.

Celebrated the miracle of my son, shared Thanksgivings and Christmases with him--after spending previous holidays not even knowing if he was alive.

Met a lovely man. Fell for him. Moved in with him. Proposed to him. Married him.

Seen sunrise over Tikal and sunset over Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.

Attended the funeral of a man who ODed six weeks after his baby son was born.

Looked down from above the clouds at Machu Picchu.

Celebrated Easter morning fireworks in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico with cherished friends.

Made my friend Doug's wish come true by asking him to be flowergirl at my wedding.

Felt snowflakes melt on my face at Lake Louise. Watched clouds drift through the treetops in the Canadian Rockies.

Walked on the floating Uros Islands of Lake Titicaca.

Roasted marshmallows around the campfire in Wimberley.

Prayed over a comatose man in ICU who overdosed after a few months sober.

Helped repair flood-battered homes in New Orleans.

Felt good knowing my parents have finally, after 40+ years, stopped worrying about me.

Seen a dear friend conquer breast cancer while losing her health insurance and her job, yet emerge with her marriage and prodigious sense of humor stronger than ever.

Lost a friend to cancer, while watching him deny that disease victory by maintaining his grace and never succumbing to self-pity.

Sung karaoke sober.

Danced sober.

Made love sober.

Discovered that every cell in a body not deadened with massive doses of a depressant feels marvelously alive and vibrant.

Survived the Bikram Yoga Challenge.

Not too bad for a five-year-old.

The view from here

I had a really lovely Thanksgiving this year.

So many things to be thankful for: almost-grown kids who not only speak to me, but made the drive up to Austin to hang out with all of us old folks; still married (I know!) to Mr. Wonderful; good health; and at last, feeling nearly at peace with myself and most people.

An old friend I'd lost touch with for years caught up with me for coffee a few weeks ago. My friend noticed that I seemed content and happy, and reconnecting was like "finding a cozy old pair of slippers I'd forgotten in the back of my closet."

I felt ok with being "old slippers." I'm letting my hair go gray.

Contentment is good for the soul, I suppose, but bad for artistic output.

Isn't some angst or perturbation required to push a person to do...what? Great things? Create art? Mend the world's ills? Is that what my grandiose little ego wants me to think is my mission?

What about living a happy life and cherishing the people who populate it? Isn't that enough?

Maybe it's that old-time religion in me, making me feel that reveling in a life of simple joys is somehow selfish. There's a suspicion of contentment -- serenity means you're not paying attention to the evils in the world.

Pakistan. Darfur. Squalor. Oppression. Poverty. Dancing With The Stars.

The horror is out there. And there is more for me to do.

But feeling my son hug me so tight when he walked in the door at Thanksgiving felt like heaven on earth.

And at the end of a strenuous practice, relaxing in savasana on my yoga mat, my upturned palm nesting inside my mate's...heaven.

Watching the rain fall and wind blow across the Wimberley hills while I sip hot chocolate by the window, even more heaven.

"As the fly bangs against the window attempting freedom while the door stands open, so we bang against death ignoring heaven."
Doug Horton

In Guinea Pig We Trust

Back from honeymooning in Peru. Happy to report I did not fall off a mountain, did not die of altitude sickness (despite feeling for a while like my eyeballs would explode from the pressure), and was not bitten by a llama. I did, however, learn the difference between an alpaca and a llama, and added this to my list of party tricks. You've been warned.

In Peru, the national delicacy, their delicious dish, is Guinea Pig. You can walk down Cuzco's cobblestone streets and find dozens of sidewalk cafes charming as any on the Seine or along Ringstrasse. Proudly emblazoned on the chalkboard menus out front: "Baked Guinea Pig."

Oh so many reasons to be a vegetarian.

Now, the gustatory delights of Guinea Pig aside, I also learned that the rural people of Peru ascribe amazing properties to this little rodent.

Hillary's health reforms have not reached Peru yet. But even if they could afford it, most rural people live so far away from a hospital, any serious ailment would either improve or kill them long before they reached one.

No problem! You got a Guinea Pig, you're in business.

Apparently the procedure goes this way: The practitioner takes a live Guinea Pig, holds it in one hand, and waves it over you. Like being wanded by an airport security screener, but with a Guinea Pig. Next (sensitive viewers may not want to read the next bit), they slice open the Guinea Pig to observe its insides. If the furry little beast had a bad heart, the human patient gets heart medicine, bad Guinea kidneys, the person gets kidney potions, etc. In Peru, "MRI" stands for Manual Rodent Inspection.

I did not have the Guinea Pig test, but here's a picture of me at Machu Picchu, soaking up the positive energy reported to emanate from Sacred Rock.

It's very popular with the tourists, who can't wait to get their little shots of positive energy courtesy of this monumental Inkan stone, which just happens to be shaped like...

One last little bit of Peru lore about the Guinea Pig's role in evangelizing the Inkas. In Lima's big cathedral and Cuzco's equally impressive 16th-century sanctuary, are massive paintings of The Last Supper. In both paintings, on the table in front of Our Savior and the disciples, on a platter and with its four feet pointing heavenward, is...

"Take, eat. For this is my Guinea Pig, which was broken for you."

Recycled

Two weeks from tomorrow, I take that long walk from single 40-something mother of mostly grown kids to empty nester newly wed.

Despite my obvious practice at this, it's harder than you might think finding the right dress for my fourth wedding.

"Fourth wedding" sounds ghastly, so I prefer to say I'm marrying my third husband. That at least sounds a bit less Elizabeth-Tayloresque. My second husband was stretched over two marriages, so this is my third husband, fourth marriage.

OK, now back to the important thing. The dress.

I walked miles in malls and searched online versions of those same stores. I'm too young for the MOB dresses (mother of the bride) and "dignified"--and I hope you appreciate the humor in uttering "fourth wedding" and "dignified" in the same breath--enough not to wear something clearly too young for me.

It all looks like Briteny Spears prom dresses or something Aunt Esther might have worn to a fancy church meeting on Sanford and Son.

I told my mother I felt like those paper bags of bananas you buy at the grocery store, five pounds for a dollar. Not old and rotten enough to throw out, but close enough to going bad that you've gotta get them off the shelf. Pronto.

What's the right packaging for that?

Friends who know me and my Mr. Wonderful's green leanings, teased me about finding a recycled dress. And I DID find one. Made of recycled plastic and silk tulle, looked like a cross between Japanese paper and lace, and dotted with Swarvorski crystals. At $7,000, that was a big fat I don't think so.

My friend Doug (the "flower girl" for my upcoming wedding) found my dress on bluefly.com. Through Internet magic--also where Mr. Wonderful found his Ralph Lauren tuxedo and our platinum wedding bands (on eBay--natch!)--Doug found the dress. Not at all the dress I'd imagined: something tailored, understated, sensible and befitting someone who wasn't exactly new at this. Nope. Not that. Instead, we found a glamorous, romantic, formal gown.

Before I found the dress, I whined to Mr. Wonderful that it was impossible to find the appropriate thing for this occasion. "I can't wear a big, dumb wedding dress," I simpered.

"Why not? You're getting married," he said, very gently and sweetly, melting me into tears immediately.

Thank God finding love has nothing to do with deserving it. But maybe keeping it has everything to do with appreciating it. And I do. I will.

I am getting married. Me. Again.

To the sweetest, kindest, most trustworthy man I've ever known. Well, except for the man who'll take me down that long walk into my future married life, my Dad. Who, by the way, loves Mr. Wonderful almost as much as I do. Heck, Dad proposed to my groom long before I did.

"I look forward to the day I can call you my son-in-law," he said, about 18 months ago.

So, the dress is new. Only the bride is recycled.

NOLA, we hardly know ya

Last weekend, I visited New Orleans with a group of earnest, upper-middle class, mostly middle-aged folks from Houston, plus friends from Fla. and Colo. We worked our overpadded behinds off mucking out houses and doing various "do-gooder" things. We'd come to help the bowed but unbroken people in the Lower 9th and Gentilly.

Too many stories to tell just one.

Like the springer spaniel whose owners left him behind but the attic stairs down in case floodwater came in the house, thinking they'd be gone a day or two. The pup survived 3 weeks in the attic, with water up to the ladder's top step and no food. Today, the re-plumped pup is understandably wary of strangers, but also, a great testament to the will to survive.

I think about the house where most of the contents were gone but a calendar still hung on the wall, the page for August, 2005 with each day marked off up to the 28th. There were a couple of batons left in the closet, the girl was a twirler. A rosary was left on the window sill. When we put it out on the curb with a pile of trash, we didn't realize the black box, about the size of a gallon gas can, held cremated remains of a long-gone family member. But one team member found an identical box, so that sent us out to dig through the pile and retrieve the other one.

Ashes to ashes.

Monday, my first day back at work, I was still having trouble adjusting to my normal life. The focused, intense physical labor, the closeness of my team members, the emotional impact of being immersed in the inescapable reality of mortality and impermanence--it's hard to reenter the everyday world after that. I miss them. Sweating and getting Sheetrock dust in my eyes and itching from fiberglass insulation and working harder than I knew I could. I miss it.

I looked around and realized my personal office at work is the size of a FEMA trailer that an entire family lives in. The trailers still fill parks and line residential streets. About 12,000 families still live in them, and sometimes get tossed out of them in the middle of the night by the authorities for flimsy reasons. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17575595/

When you meet the people rebuilding their homes in Gentilly, or step into a FEMA trailer and take a good look around, which takes about 2 seconds, you realize this is America, too. We want to think those people still living in FEMA trailers are different from us. They are the victims of their corrupt government. Or lazy. Or another regrettable fruit of ignorance and poverty. Anything to console yourself that they are not like us. Anything to let you hold them at arm's length and tell yourself what happened to them can't happen to you.

But, if I lost my job, my home, all my possessions, and the insurance money was not immediately forthcoming, how long could I afford to live in something better than this? And what if this same fate struck all of my immediate and extended family at the same time? Where would I turn for help?

Nearsighted

I suffer from myopia of the medical and spiritual varieties. I'm "nearsighted," so if it's right in front of my nose, I can see it. But, if it's beyond arm's length, it's a blur.

I wish I could see farther out into the future, then I wouldn't have to strain my weak faith. There would be no leaping into the unknown. All that anxious energy I devote to worrying over making this choice or that one, I could spend that energy on other things. Like planning for retirement or cleaning out my car trunk.

Grand-girlfriend

I'm becoming a grand-girlfriend today. My soon-to-be POSSLQ's (Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters, as the U.S. Census Dept. calls him) daughter is having a baby, his first grandchild.

Moving a notch down the chain of mortality does strange things to your outlook. I thought grandkids would be trouble-free. You spoil 'em, they giggle when they see you, and when they whine or poop in their pants, you can hand them over to their parents. What a deal!

Then I think about my own parents, my kids' grandparents. And I realize how many heartaches they've endured over the hard knocks my kids have taken. In some ways, grandparenthood is worse than being a parent. You love the little buggers and feel even more helpless when bad things happen to them. You're a generation removed.

They say that becoming a parent is one of the greatest acts of courage, because you've allowed your heart to go walking around outside your body. It may be doubly so for grandparents--you ache for your own child, who suffers when her child does, and for the grandchild, too.

My life has been a series of events that broke me open, softened me up and made me tougher at the same time. I look at one of my young co-workers, who tells me he needs to "learn to be more compassionate" to colleagues who don't pull their weight.

I tell him, "It comes with age. The longer you're around, the more chances you have to screw up. And you realize how many times you deserved the hammer to fall on you, but for some unknown reason it didn't. Then you stop wishing for the hammer to fall on someone else."

Although I'm much too young to be anybody's grandmother, for godsakes, even being the significant other of a grandfather makes me feel different. Life snuck up on me. I'm busy having my nails done and worrying about filing my income taxes late, and the next thing you know, mortality taps me on the shoulder.

I am getting older. One day, I'll be old. In the last few days, I've gotten emails about a co-worker's 40-something fiance' dying from a sudden stroke. And a colleague's sister being killed suddenly in a car wreck. And one of my dearest mentors going in for open-heart surgery.

These things happen to other people, not me. Right? Like being a grandparent. That's not me. Not yet. No way I'm old enough to be that uncool....

Stubby Update

We have learned that Stubby the Iguana came through hurricanes Katrina and Wilma unscathed. Nobody's exactly sure where he went or how he weathered the storm, but he's back most afternoons, just as always, happy to take a free handout of vegetarian grub if you've got some to spare.

Although the office building where our Ft. Lauderdale friends work will take more than a year to be restored, Stubby did not lose so much as a fingernail in all the hubbub.

Now, if that doesn't give you the properly perky post-holiday perspective (and how can you not feel perky in the presence of alliteration?) take this nifty little quiz to find out your personality type expressed as a Christmas Tree, Hanukkah Bush or Kwanzaa Shrub:

You Are a Minimal Christmas Tree

You're not a total Scrooge, but you feel no need to go overboard at Christmas. Less is more, and your Christmas reflects refined quality.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

Immortal Befuddled

This is me, passionate hater of gym step-climber machines. What am I doing? Climbing, climbing, climbing. Like most humans, I can make myself do just about anything, if motivated enough.



















This is the payoff for all my huffing and puffing: the view at the ladder's end.







Ok. I really will get back to this topic...you are hanging on the edges of your seats, aren't you my throng of devoted readers? (I think that means chainsaw yogi, my one loyal reader. "One" probably does not constitute a throng, but it's one who counts with me). But I have another post first and then back to this one.

Enlightenment--that magnificent escape from anguish and ignorance--never happens by accident. It results from the brave and sometimes lonely battle of one person against his own weaknesses. -Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, "Landscapes of Wonder"


We have met the enemy and it is us.

Pogo

Tense? Women are used to it

In a recent study, researchers discovered that men who experienced high levels of tension suffered higher rates of heart disease and atrial fibrillation and had higher mortality rates compared to men who did not experience chronic feelings of tension. Tension did not appear to have the same effect in women. http://www.realage.com/news_features/tip.aspx?dat=2_12_2005

Yeah, we know. If women had not evolved over millions of years to handle tension and still outlive men, the species would have been deader than the dodo.

The researchers suggest 10 minutes of deep breathing, meditation, listening to soothing music. I guess the researchers are just too realistic to add to that list, "go tell your boss to commit a physical impossibility upon himself," or "avoid all viewing of Victoria's Secret Christmas advertising," or "use your credit cards until the raised numbers on their faces are rubbed down flush with the cards' surfaces." These are some of the ways I for one would like to manage-- not tension, which we women are supposedly less damaged by-- but anxiety, which makes women and men equally ill.

Apparently, tension is dealing with the stress of what is. We can handle that. Anxiety is the stress of imagining what horrible thing lies waiting just around the corner. Or on the other end of the telephone line when your boss tells the receptionist you will answer the client who had asked for him instead. Tension makes your lips thin and causes vertical lines between your eyebrows. Anixety kills you.

I'll just take a few deep breaths and think about that while you administer this stress test on yourselves. http://www.jokefile.co.uk/quizzes/stresstest.html

Another week and where'd it go?

Hello, my blogpals.

Another week has flown by. Don't get me wrong. I'm beyond happy it's Friday. One more phone call, expecting a pat on the head from a client I'd done--what I thought was--a great job for, only to get a sucker punch to the kisser instead. Nothing's ever good enough. I sink into a funk that even tiny dark chocolate Milky Way bars can't lift. Can I ever get anything right for these people???

It should've been a happier week for me. Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination. Cheney's chief of staff indicted. But a vague tinge of guilt keeps me from enjoying the afflictions visited on the undeserving, powerful and vindictive. Karma tends to make that pleasure boomerang on you...it won't be too long before you're guilty of at least two of those things (getting something you didn't deserve, being vindictive, maybe even abusing a position of power you have over someone less fortunate).

Well, if nothing else goes right, at least I'll get an extra hour of sleep this weekend...thanks to that old "fall back" thing.

Have a good one, kiddos. I'll be back next week, ready to take another kick in the pants or blow to the ego and say, smiling and servile, "Thank you sir! May I have another?"

It's all in a day's work.

Happy Friday!

This picture of Stubby the Iguana is brought to you by way of family in Pompano Beach, Florida. Stubby lives in the neighbor's palm tree and ambles over to Ted and Cindy's on sunny afternoons for free vegetarian grub. Loves grapes, tomatoes not so much. Iceberg lettuce, yes, but spinach, don't think so. They say beggars can't be choosy...Stubbs hasn't heard that saying.

He was dubbed Stubbs after one of the multitude of recent hurricanes to pass through left him with only a partial tail. It's grown back, but the tell-tail difference in coloration indicates where the new part is. Stubby's a survivor. Unbeaten. Unbowed.

There is a population explosion of Iguanas in Pompano Beach. They're becoming pests (sorry, Stubby). Hard to imagine any creatures so ugly, scaly and slow-moving could be getting shagged so much that their resulting offspring cause a problem. But then again, my mother always said, "there's somebody for everyone." Apparently this goes double for Iguanas in Pompano Beach, Florida.

Despite the hazards of losing life, limb or lizard tail in the frequent storms, the vibe in Pompano Beach is ultra pleasant. Laid back and beach-bummy. Thinking of Stubbs, how he crawled underneath a dock and hung by his toenails while the hurricane did its worst, I'm reminded that most of what I get twisted over isn't worth the worry. Stubbs does nothing more than show up and goofy people feed him grapes and lettuce and want to have their picture taken with him. Heck, Mr. Wonderful even put Stubby's picture on T-Shirts and ran him for president.

If an ugly, scaly and slow-moving thing like Stubby could be so well cared for, I probably don't need to worry so much about getting my own needs met. No, I don't think the world owes me. I try not to have an attitude of entitlement. Gratitude and appreciation are much more rewarding and appropriate responses to life. I'm not saying there aren't appalling, hideous, egregious aspects to life---more than half the world's children are suffering extreme deprivations from poverty, war and HIV/AIDS.

At the same time that almost half a billion children on the planet don't have access to safe drinking water, children in this country have moonwalks installed on their front lawns for birthday parties.

Growing up guilt-ridden and Southern Baptist, (that's redundant, isn't it?) you are taught that on judgment Day you will be called to account for yourself. You'll review an instant-replay of your life and be asked, "What did you do with what you were given?"

Now, there's plenty to dislike about Southern Baptist weirdo theology, but that idea--what do you do with what you are given?--isn't too bad.

I asked God, "why do you let innocent children die of starvation? Why
don't you do something?"

And God said, "I did do something."

"Oh yeah? What?"

"I made you."

http://www.selltheranch.com/

This is why God gave us blogs in the first place.

I am humbled in the presence of greatness.

The big boss is coming to town. I'm writing to get some of the anxiety out of my insides and "off gas" it into the blogosphere.

There will be preening. And long, tedious meetings. There will be speechifying. And, there will be public floggings in the main square. (Well, I'm not so sure about that last bit)

I never feel truly good about the work I do at this place. There's always something I've screwed up, or haven't done up to par. And the sad thing is, it's always internally focused things that take up so much time that I'm not able to do the right thing for my customers. It's a queasy, slippery feeling almost all the time.

Oddly, I know what to do about this, but don't remember very often. Focus on what I can control--my actions, my attitude. Do what I can, have realistic (so difficult for someone who really prefers unreality) appraisal of what I can accomplish each day. Try to remember how much longer it takes to do simple things because of the paperwork and beauracracy involved. And BE GRATEFUL TO HAVE A JOB!

Seriously, I live in the city that took in the biggest wave of Katrina victims. It's bad manners to whine about feeling unsatisfied and inept at work.

And, once again, I tell myself that I will make a plan and take steps to change things. Start by simplifying my life a bit. Talk to people and let them know I'm looking for my next career adventure. And, one more time, remind myself that unless I do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, I'm not going to feel right about anything on the job. Oh, yes, and remember that the assholes and miscreants I work with are sick human beings like me. No different. It's just that I can see their blindspots and weaknesses so much more clearly than my own.

You mean, have compassion? On them? On me?

Oh yeah, that's what I meant.

It's quittin' time boys and girls! After five days of groveling for the almighty dollar (including the humiliation of presenting my seriously obese, diabetic boss with a box of donuts and a card for "boss's day"--are we sucking up to him, or trying to kill him?) we get a few days to unwind, decompress, have our souls dry cleaned, and then we get to do it all over again. Will you all join me in singing the Friday song? http://www.landoverbaptist.org/audio/well.wav

Wishing you a safe and happy weekend, but if you can't quite manage that and need someone discreet to post bail, you know where to call me.

Why is it so difficult to do what you know is good for you? Why is it so much easier to fuck off? It's easier to slouch than to sit up straight. Good posture takes effort. Easier to turn the alarm off and go back to sleep than to get up and go exercise. Easier to eat junk than to prepare a healthy fresh meal. Easier to abuse credit cards than save for a comfortable retirement. Easier to throw clothes on the floor than hang them back up. Easier to slump onto the couch and watch TV than invest time in deepening relationships, or visit a museum or use your brain. I read somewhere that your brain is more active when you sit and stare at a wall than when you watch TV.

But I digress.

Writing a couple thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul bemoaned this human predicament. In his letter to he Romans, Paul whined, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. "

My minister, Fr. Jim Nutter at Palmer Episcopal Church, says Paul is the most important person who ever lived. THE. And there are plenty of people to choose from. I don't know. Paul is a hard character to warm up to. You read his letters and some of them seem so much like mental masturbation. (forgive me for using the word "masturbation" in the same paragraph as my priest's name and while referring to one of the major league Saints). Paul seems to have conflicted, almost tortured ideas about sexuality and women.

But then, that same prickly Paul, difficult to warm up to, and sometimes downright tedious and anal gives us this:
1 Corinthians 13: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."


I know I'm going to keep fucking off. I'm human. That's how I'm wired. But I also have the capacity to love. That's side-by-side with my propensity for being a clod. It's a grandmother's love. Every blobby, smeared fingerpaint we make gets a prominent place on her fridge. In her eyes, we're brilliant, gifted and amazing--even when we've got acne and cowlicks. It's that love that always hopes and keeps plugging away, reminding us to turn off theTV and talk--or better yet, listen--to our loved ones, eat some green things, go for a walk, sit up straight. If we never got to experience much of that kind of love in the "real world," it's hard to tap into our inner reserves. But, I think it's there in most of us--certain psychopaths like some of my co-workers are the exception.

For another opinion, go here: http://www.fes-net.com/_lob/LOL/sounds/donotpassgo.wav

"My mom may be crazy, but at least she's doing all she can about it."

Quote from my 17-year-old daughter

Mr. Wonderful's making merry with power tools down in the ravine. I'm wondering if the noise over there is a wandering cow, flock of wild gobblers or a time-warped band of Hippies hunting for 'shrooms. (We are just 1/2 hour outside of "Keeping It Weird" Austin, Texas).